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Do I believe in UFOs...
...or extra-terrestrial visitors?
I'm not authorized to answer that question.
Where shall I begin?
UFO! First, remember what the U stands for in UFO.
Now, there's a fascinating frailty of the human mind...
...that psychologists know all about...
...and it's called "argument from ignorance"...
...and this is how it goes. Ready?
Somebody sees lights flashing in the sky.
They've never seen it before.
They don't understand what it is.
They say: "A UFO!"
The U stands for: unidentified.
So they say: "I don't know what it is...
...it must be aliens from outer space visiting from another planet."
Well. If you don't know what it is...
...that's where your conversation should stop.
You know, then say: "It must be anything." OK?
That's what argument from ignorance is.
It's common. I'm not blaming anybody.
Psychologists know all about it...
...and it may relate to our burning need...
...to have to know stuff...
...because we're uncomfortable, steeped in ignorance.
You can't be a scientist if you're uncomfortable with ignorance...
...because we live at the boundary between what is known and unknown in the universe.
Unlike what journalists write.
Did you ever see journalists... any journalists here?
You go to journalists...
All articles about science begin:
"Scientists now have to go back to the drawing board!"
As though we're sitting up in our office, you know...
...masters of the universe!
Oops! Somebody discovered something.
No, we're always at the drawing board.
If you're not at the drawing board, you're not making discoveries.
You're something else.
So the public, it appears, seems to have this burning need...
...to have to have an answer to what is unknown.
...and so you go from an abject statement of ignorance...
...to an abject statement of certainty.
So, that is operating within us.
Let's start there. Second:
We know, not only from research in psychology...
...but simple empirical evidence in the history...
...of science, that the lowest form of evidence...
...that exists in this world, is eyewitness testimony...
...which is scary because that's some of the highest form of evidence in the court of law.
But we know from second grade...
...where is my guy from second grade? Get up to the microphone from there.
Grab the microphone.
In your classes have you done the famous experiment, where you play telephone...
...and you line up all you kids in class and one person starts with a story...
...and then you hear it and you repeat it to the next person and the next...
Have you done that in class yet?
Yes.
What happens by the time you get to the last person...
and they retell the story, what happens?
It's like completely different.
It's completely different!
Completely different, ok?
Because the conveyance of information was relying on...
...eyewitness testimony, which in that case is earwitness testimony.
And so, thank you, so we know that.
He knows it in second grade. Alright.
So, actually he should be in twelfth grade.
So now, it wouldn't matter if you saw a flying saucer.
In science, even if you have something less controversial than a flying saucer...
...if you come into my lab and you say:
"You got to believe me, I saw it!"...
...and you were one of my fellow scientists, I'd say...
Go home! Go back and see if you have some other kind of evidence...
...that's not just "You saw it".
Ok? Because human perception system is rife with all ways of getting it wrong.
Ok? But we don't like thinking of ourselves that way.
We have high opinions of our human biology...
...when in fact we should not.
I'll give you an example of how it reveals itself.
We've all bought and enjoyed books called, erm... "Optical Illusions", right?
Well, we all love optical illusions.
But that's not what they should call the books...
...they should call them "Brain Failures", ok?
Because that's what it is!
That is a complete failure of human perception. Alright?
All it takes is a few sketches that are cleverly done, your brain can't figure it out.
Alright? So, we are poor data-taking devices.
That's why we have such a thing as science.
Because we have machines that don't care what side of the bed they woke up in the morning...
...don't care what they said to the spouse that day...
...doesn't care whether they had their morning caffeine.
They'll get the data right.
So, maybe you did see visitors from another part of the galaxy.
I need more than your eyewitness testimony...
...and in modern times I need more than your photograph...
...which photoshop only has a UFO-button today, stick it in...
...on your computer. So...
Here's what you do:
I'm not saying we haven't been visited...
...I'm saying the evidence does thus far brought forth...
...does not satisfy the standards of evidence...
...that any scientist would require...
...for any other claim that you're gonna walk into the lab with.
So here's what I recommend.
Next time you're abducted, 'cause I'm ready for this...
Ok? I get abducted?
I'm ready. Ok?
So you're there. You're like on the slab, 'cause they always do like the sex experiments on you...
at the flying saucers, so there you are...
...and they're poking at you.
Here's what you do.
You're ready?
You tell the alien... you're the alien for this, right?
So, you're poking me. All right?
So they don't say, ok...
...so I say: "Hey, look over there!"
And then he looks over there...
...you quickly like *** something off the shelf...
...put it in the pocket and then lie back.
All right? Then you're done, you come back...
...you say: "Look what I've got.
I like stole the ashtray off the shelf...
...of the flying saucer."
And then you bring that to the lab.
It's not about eyewitness testimony that way...
...'cause you'll have something an alien manufactured.
And anything you pull off of a flying saucer...
...that crossed the galaxy, is gonna be interesting.
Ok? Because even objects within our own culture...
I got this device here, ok? The iPhone.
10 years ago they would have resurrected the witch burning laws...
...had you pulled this thing out.
And that's in our own culture.
Our own culture produced this...
...over a 10 year span.
So if there's some technology that crossed the galaxy...
...that's gonna be some serious stuff to look at in the lab.
Then we can have the conversation.
Until then I can't, I'm sorry. Go ahead...
...keep trying to find them. I'm not...
...gonna stop you.
But get ready for that time you're abducted...
...because I'll be looking for your evidence when that happens.
And a last point on that.
There are people who look up all the time.
Like for example the community of amateur astronomers in the world.
I was an amateur astronomer.
We come out of a building and we look up.
Doesn't matter... we're looking up.
UFO sightings are not higher among amateur astronomers than...
...they are in the general public.
In fact they are lower.
You say, well why is that so?
Well because we know what the hell we're looking at.
Because we study this stuff.
Do you know there was a UFO sighting reported by a police officer...
...because we think that because you have a badge or you're a pilot...
...or whatever, that your testimony is better than when you're an average person.
It's all bad, because we're human. Ok?
So, there was a police officer who was...
...tracking a UFO...
...that was swaying back and forth in the sky.
What you call the car? The SWAT car chasing the UFO...
...and the UFO is moving back and forth like this.
Later it turned out...
...the cob car was chasing Venus...
...and he was driving on a curved road.
But was so distracted by Venus...
...he thought Venus was the one moving...
...and he wasn't even thinking that he was doing this.
So i have seen things, which without my background...
...in meteorology and astronomy and looking up...
...i would have report it to the police department. I would have!
Like orographic clouds, they form above huge mountains...
...that are circular and they're above a tall mountain...
...which means wherever you are the sun can set for you...
...before it has set fot the cloud...
...darkening the skies, yet this cloud is now illuminated by sunset colors...
...which are what? Red, yellow, orange...
...and it's circular. There've been reports of hummering...
...circular UFOs with light beams on them...
...because people are looking at this cloud formation on top of mountains.
So, maybe we have been visited by aliens.
Maybe they even landed, but why do they land in like the farmers yard...
...and not like the time square, alright?
And then i worry, maybe they had landed in time square...
...but nobody took notice, you know what i mean?
That's the really big problem there. And so...
...i give a huge answer because there's a lot built in that.
Here's another concern i had...
...you said about movies, remember "Close Encounter of the Third Kind"?
Remember that? And the aliens come and there's big flying saucer...
...and what do we do? We turn on runway lights for it, thinking...
Flying saucers don't need runway lights, they're flying saucers for goodness sake...
...put a bullseye or something, don't put runway lights for this thing.
When you go to Roswell and there's like crashed flying saucers i'm thinking...
...if the alien came across the galaxy, and couldn't land a damn spaceship...
...i don't wanna meet the aliens, they're stupid aliens! Alright?
Land on Earth for goodness sake!
Don't tell me you came across the galaxy, you can't land on earth. 205 00:11:23,166 --> 00:11:25,469 Go home! Bring me somebody who can.
Then i'll have the conversation.
Anyhow, so those are my opinions on the subject!